Isaiah 40:12-31

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

¹² Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand
    and marked off the heavens with a span,
enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure
    and weighed the mountains in scales
    and the hills in a balance?
¹³ Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord,
    or as his counselor has instructed him?
¹⁴ Whom did he consult for his enlightenment,
    and who taught him the path of justice,
and taught him knowledge,
    and showed him the way of understanding?
¹⁵ Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,
    and are accounted as the dust on the scales;
    behold, he takes up the isles like fine dust.
¹⁶ Lebanon would not suffice for fuel,
    nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering.
¹⁷ All the nations are as nothing before him,
    they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.

¹⁸ To whom then will you liken God,
    or what likeness compare with him?
¹⁹ The idol! a workman casts it,
    and a goldsmith overlays it with gold,
    and casts for it silver chains.
²⁰ He who is impoverished^[a] chooses for an offering
    wood that will not rot;
he seeks out a skilful craftsman
    to set up an image that will not move.

²¹ Have you not known? Have you not heard?
    Has it not been told you from the beginning?
    Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
²² It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
    and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
    and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;
²³ who brings princes to nought,
    and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.

²⁴ Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
    scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,
when he blows upon them, and they wither,
    and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

²⁵ To whom then will you compare me,
    that I should be like him? says the Holy One.
²⁶ Lift up your eyes on high and see:
    who created these?
He who brings out their host by number,
    calling them all by name;
by the greatness of his might,
    and because he is strong in power
    not one is missing.

²⁷ Why do you say, O Jacob,
    and speak, O Israel,
“My way is hid from the Lord,
    and my right is disregarded by my God”?
²⁸ Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary,
    his understanding is unsearchable.
²⁹ He gives power to the faint,
    and to him who has no might he increases strength.
³⁰ Even youths shall faint and be weary,
    and young men shall fall exhausted;
³¹ but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
    they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
    they shall walk and not faint.